


And The Road Keeps On

by hariboo



Series: Moments In Transit [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1482223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts when Natasha hands him the folder. Before it continues though, he has a place to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Road Keeps On

It starts when Natasha hands him the folder. Sam stands at his side and tell him he’s with him. _Til the end of the line_ , Steve thinks. Bucky was with him too, until that train veered off course and they lost each other in the turn. Steve won’t lose him now. 

_Til the end of the line_ , Steve promises.

-

Before it continues though, he has a place to go. 

When they get there Sam waits outside. Steve doesn’t need to ask him to. Sam just looks at the name on the building and leans back against the car, says nothing, but there’s an understanding in his eyes. 

Peggy’s room smells the same as it always does: tea and honey, and flowers. He sends some every week. She tells him her niece does the same thing. He’s never met her, the niece, but he likes knowing there’s someone else out there that cares about Peggy. Someone who will visit and send flower every week when he can’t. Today she’s not on her bed. She’s by her window, the sunlight is hitting her face, making look not younger, just brighter. Sometimes the light in her eyes dims for second and nothing hurts Steve more. Today she seems happy, humming as she listens to music. Etta James, he recognises. She told him it one of her favourites. He put on his list and crossed it off months ago. He has a copy on vinyl back at his apartment. He listens to it often.

Steve knocks and waits for her to look at him. Some days she doesn’t need the reminder. Some days she does. 

Today she says, “Steve.” Her lips curve, her smile widening, and she reaches out her hand. “You came to visit.”

Steve’s heart aches at her voice, at her smile. He steps forward and takes her hand in his. She still doesn’t feel frail, not that she ever did to him. She’d been larger than life and more beautiful than paintings he saw in the art books at the library. The wrinkles in her hands sometimes make him long for the years he spent without her. Sitting by her side, he keeps her hand between his, and says hi.

Peggy keeps smiling. “I’ve been watching the news. You’ve been busy.”

Steve wants to smile and finds he can’t. He remembers why he joined SHIELD in the first place. “I’m sorry about SHIELD, I know you helped build it. I’m sorry that it—"

Peggy waves him off, but there’s a sadness in her voice. A disappointed, hurt look that crosses her eyes. “I would rather see SHIELD be destroyed by you for the right reasons than let it continue under a twisted rule. I still can’t.” She shakes her head. “I feel a bit a fool.”

“Don’t feel bad. A lot of people were fooled. Anyway, you were always smartest girl I knew, Peggy. Still are.”

She gives him a long look, but her smile comes back. “Quite.”

Now he finds he can smile back, if only for her.

They sit there and smile at each other in sun until he feels her squeeze his hand. It’s a bit of a twitch, her hands haven’t lost their strength, but sometimes he’s seen how her hands shake. 

“Now, what’s going on in that head of yours, Steve? You always come to see me when you’re thinking too much.”

“Can’t I just wanna see my best girl?”

Peggy grins, warm and wide, but shakes her head. “Quit it, Rogers.” Then softer: “Tell me what’s wrong, Steve.”

He sighs. Talking to Peggy has always been easy, it came to him like breathing, even when he felt his most awkward he could always talk to her. In that way she reminds him of both Bucky and Sam. There’s something about all three of them that make him feel immediately at ease, where he feels like he’s just still Steve, that kid from Brooklyn. 

Peggy doesn’t rush him, she never did, and in the his own silence he studies the lines of her face. Even now he can draw her from memory, how she was, how she is. He always likes drawing her, the curve of her lips and line of her lashes calming some deep part of him. Each time he sees her he wants to find something new to draw. Peggy feels like his heart some days. He can always be honest with her.

“Bucky’s alive.”

He chokes on the rest of the sentence. It doesn’t matter anyway, that was the important bit. Bucky’s alive and Peggy understands what that means. Steve doesn’t even realise he closed his eyes until he feels Peggy’s hand touch his cheek. Her eyes are clear and as brighter as ever. She doesn’t wear lipstick but he remembers how she used to paint them that deep red. There are pages filled with her face drawn is soft pencil or conté and, black and white, save that deep red. He remembers that when he crashed into the Arctic Ocean he pressed his lips together and tasted her lipstick. 

They would have been happy together, Steve thinks. They could have grown old together, except his body doesn’t age normally anymore. It wouldn’t have matter, he thinks, looking to her eyes. Eyes that see into his heart and know how hard those words were. He would have grown old with her, regardless of not growing old at all. 

“Oh, Steve. How?”

Her word bring him back from that what if. He’s been having a few of them these last few days. He never much liked them before.

“He’s the Winter Soldier.” 

Peggy was SHIELD, she knows what that means. The Winter Solider was a myth, except he wasn’t at all. He was Bucky all along. 

Her eyes flutter and he’s scared he’ll lose her. It selfish, but doesn’t want her to. He needs her right now. He needs her steadiness especially when even with a direction and a map guiding him the right way he still feels adrift. He needs Peggy to be his compass, maybe his North Star. He already lost his anchor.

“Steve, I’m so sorry. I’m.” She narrows her eyes, her wrinkles folding beautifully by her eyes. He’ll later try and remember just how they folded and how her eyes sparked with knowledge. “Now, don’t go blaming yourself.”

He chuckles, covers the hand she’s laid on his cheek with his own. “I should have saved him.”

She shakes her head. “He was a man that fell down a cliff in the middle of winter. Nobody would have survived that.”

“I would have.”

“He wasn’t you, Steve.”

“But in that camp, that lab, they were doing something to him. I should have known—I should have gotten there earlier.”

“With that argument then there’s a great many things I should have known too.”

“Peggy. I didn’t mean.”

“I know you didn’t, Steve,” she sighs. “But you also have to remember you saved so many lives that day, so many lives. You saved _his_ life. You couldn’t have known the rest. The doctors that looked him over didn’t know either.”

“I still…” he doesn’t know actually. He knows it’s pointless blaming himself. It’s like going round in circles and he can’t find the out. All he knows is he’s got to get Bucky back.

“You’re going to find him.” 

Steve looks up and meets Peggy’s eyes. They’re the clearest he seen them. He remembers how she looked at him when he came back with all those men, how she looked at him after every mission later. Her faith in him humbled him, just as Bucky’s belief in him did. That it still holds is even more humbling. 

“That’s the plan.”

She shakes her head, “No, you’re _going_ to find him, Steve. You’ve never failed at something you set your mind to. You’re kind of stubborn, if you hadn’t noticed.” She winks and he’s surprised to hear his own laugh. It’s the first time he’s laughed since Fury’s fake death. He leans forward and kisses her cheek. She still wears the same perfume. He would have loved to come home to this smell.

“You always believed in me.”

“And I’ll never stop,” she says. It sounds like a promise. “So did he.”

“I’m going to find him, Peggy.” 

That sounds like a promise too.

“I know you are.”

-

As they drive away, back to D.C, back to the starting point, Sam turns down the radio, eyeing him. 

“You look better.”

“I looked bad before?”

Sam rolls his eyes and Steve smiles. It’s easy with Sam, it’s like coming up for air, his chest stops aching and the ice is gone from the edges. 

“You know what I mean. It’s been a rough couple of weeks and it’s the first time I’ve seen you smile for real.”

Leaning his arm against the window he watches the road stretch out in front of them. Somewhere, Bucky is out there. Maybe he’s even waiting for Steve. Steve doesn’t know what he’ll find when he finally reaches that point on the map, but he feels more ready for it than before. 

Peggy could always cut through the bullshit.

“Yeah, I just needed to talk to—Peggy knew him, too.” 

“Was Peggy your girl?” Sam asks. 

Steve grins. It makes Sam quirk his brow at him. Sam doesn’t know why the question was funny, and Steve guesses many won’t. It’s easy to call to Peggy his girl, even though they never really got their chance, their dance. They danced years later, thankfully not too late. Still, Peggy was so much more. He still doesn’t have the words to fully explain who Peggy is to him. Who Bucky is. He’d need a thousand sketch books and colours that haven’t been invented. They are just his. They’re in his heart. And even when he thought the least of himself they believed in him the most.

So Steve can only grin at Sam’s curious face. 

“Yeah, my best girl.”

Sam starts to say something but stop. He just smiles. Steve thinks he gets it.

The road stretches out before them, it’s late, the sun set a while ago, and Steve can see the North Star blinking brightly in the sky. 

-

So it continues.

Next stop: to be determined.


End file.
